Cairns and Cape Tribulation!
With Cairns being right near the tropical rainforests it was inevitably going to rain for at least some of the time. Our hostel was a real party place though so at least we didn’t have to go very far for a good night out! We also went to see ‘The Blind Side’ at the cinema one day which has become our favourite ‘rainy day’ past time out here as well as looking around the shopping malls at things we can’t afford!
Having stayed 3 nights at ‘Gilligan’s’ we had a trip booked to go and stay in the Daintree Rainforest at Cape Tribulation. The tour bus picked us up at 7.30am making for a really early start as we had to check out etc, and guess what – we were hungover yet again. Having driven for about 2 hours we stopped at a cafe for brekky and then heard the news that we would have to turn around and go straight back to Cairns due to landslides further down the track due to all the rain. So as you can imagine having left 4 hrs earlier we were dumped back in Cairns where we promptly checked into another hostel ‘Global Palace’ and slid into bed. This is one of the only hostels where the beds have been regular singles not bunk-beds HOORAY! Anyway after making some calls we got to bed early that night as we were going to try and reach Cape Trib again the next morning. We awoke to glorious sunshine which proves being delayed a day must have been fate as the good weather remained for our whole trip to the rainforest 😀
The landslides had basically all been cleared and after a bit of a shakey bridge crossing where the water from the river had flooded and was now gushing over the top of it – we made it into the Daintree! First our guide took us on to a river cruise where we spotted some crocs sunbathing on the banks of the river and then showed us a few look-out points and boardwalks through the rainforest before dropping us all off at our hostels. We were staying at ‘The Beach House’ – so named as the main bar area backed right onto the beach which was really cool as the rainforest was right up to the sand. A guy called David was also in our room and the four of us had the hut furthest away from the main area making for a long walk back at night time, but more about that later..
That afternoon the four of us set out for a walk along the beach and headed up to the Cape Trib look-out which was beautiful. That evening we had a swim then cooked dinner and played some cards by the bar… then came the walk back to our hut in the dark, David had a torch which almost made things worse as he kept shining it on huge spiders in thier webs and giant crickety things – we were screaming and freaking out the whole way and David said he’d not laughed so much since he’d started his travels! haha.. about half way up Holly felt something under her feet only to realise she was STANDING ON A SNAKE – only a small python but still! EWW! Anyway basically crying we legged it the rest of the way to our hut and finally made it into bed.
Next day we walked around 4 kilometres up to Emmagen Creek, a natural swimming hole in the rainforest.. well, we found the sign anyway and then headed down the path which quickley vanished leaving us literally trekking through the jungle. After around 10 minutes of ducking and diving through the trees we decided to turn back but bumped into a couple and two brit backpackers also looking for the same place so we decided to have a second go.. again no luck – on our out again though we bumped into a local man and his son clutching lilos.. perfect, third time lucky. They led us right up the river and eventually we came out to a beautiful pool, if a little bitten and bruised by our jungle adventure it was well worth it in the end.
The next day the bus came to get us around 1.30pm and on our way out of the rainforest we stopped at the Alexadra Lookout and saw Mossman Gorge national park before being dropped off in the holiday town of Port Douglas.
XXX
Tags: 1
alice12
Leave a Reply